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Natural Rafts Carried Animals Around the Globe

Accepted by evolutionists for many years

by Dominic Statham

According to the Bible, the only nostril-breathing, land-dwelling animals that survived the Genesis Flood were those on board Noah’s Ark. This means, that all the land vertebrates alive on the earth today must be descended from the offspring of the Ark travellers. Moreover, these must have migrated to their current habitats from the place where the Ark finally came to rest, somewhere on the mountains of Ararat, in the Middle East. Various theories have been put forward to explain how this could have happened, some of which seem quite plausible, such as migration across land bridges, which have now fallen below sea level, and transportation by humans.

Another explanation which is gaining increasing support is the rafting hypothesis.

Interestingly, the potential for dispersal of plants and animals across large stretches of water by natural rafts has been accepted by evolutionists for many years. Professor Paul Moody of the University of Vermont argued,

“In times of flood, large masses of earth and entwining vegetation, including trees, may be torn loose from the banks of rivers and swept out to sea. Sometimes such masses are encountered floating in the ocean out of sight of land, still lush and green, with palms, twenty to thirty feet [7 to 10 m] tall. It is entirely probable that land animals may be transported long distances in this manner. Mayr records that many tropical ocean currents have a speed of at least two knots; this would amount to fifty miles [80 km] a day, 1000 miles [1600 km] in three weeks.”

More recently, the rafting idea has been advanced by evolutionists to explain the presence of the Bear Cuscus (Ailurops ursinus) and the Dwarf Cuscus (Strigocuscus celebensis) on the island of Sulawesi2 and of lemurs on the island of Madagascar.3 In 1995, fishermen witnessed the colonisation of the island of Anguilla in the West Indies by iguanas. These were washed up on one of the island’s eastern beaches, having floated there on a mat of logs and uprooted trees, a few weeks after two hurricanes hit the islands of the Lesser Antilles. Scientists believed that the iguanas had rafted 320 km from Guadeloupe…